.......................................FORN SIÐR URÞANK..........................................
..........................Deep Thought about the Old Ways...................................
I am Siegfried Goodfellow, author of "Wyrd Megin Thew : The Wild, Wooly Strength of Heathen Ways". Heathenry is a fantastic contribution to a renewed spiritual culture. Ur-Thanc is thought/thank-fulness bubbling up from the primordial depths. All Material Copyright Siegfried Goodfellow.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Gather Up Thy Wyrd

Wyrd is everything that is and has been, everything that is becoming, and everything that might be, the living, perilous potentiality in that becoming. My wyrd, therefore, includes not only what I will become, but all the could-be me's, all the alternative reality me's that will be chosen or selected out not only by my deeds, but by the collective operation of chance and how I play it ; chance being the unpredictable consequence and ramification of the collective deeds of us all. But because all of this grows out of what has been, there is no present and no future without a past, and therefore building our sense of continuity with the past, a real living feeling for the past, is what allows us to truly be in touch with our wyrd. Everything grows out of its roots.

By affirming your incarnation, you are choosing to wrap yourself around and through everything that happens, and therefore, which will be. Your deeds intricate you into existence itself. Your wyrd embodies Bell's Theorem, and embraces all the multiple universe you's that branch out from every bifurcation or polyfurcation point, amongst which are selected by chance and the strong force of one's deeds.

My wyrd includes everything I could be gathered by me into this moment, from everything I have been, and all the tendencies inherent and alive in that. I am therefore a living, pulsing chaos capable of much, capable of far more than we realize, and wyrd is the process of blossoming that potential, and as the greatest tangle of Celtic knots in that well-known La Tene style, I grow myself in and around and amidst and through everything else. We all hang together in the weave, all of us : not just the deeds of human beings, but the deeds of every plant, every tree, every creature ; the deeds of the rivers, and of the land, and of the sky, and of the spinning planet through space, and the stars. All of it interflows through each other, so that we are involved with each other whether we like it or no, whether we know it or no.

When we call someone weird, we are saying that they have an unpredictability, and a flow pattern which is unusual and enables a kind of a freedom that allows them to transcend the ordinary rut, and steps outside of expectation patterns with a kind of surreal intensity that has the potentiality and texture of dreams, so when I gather up my wyrd, I am summoning into myself all of this surreal power of becoming, so that I am not limited by expectation and static pattern, but rather conditioned by the living, crackling potentiality still alive in everything that has become and which continues to grow into that which may be.

True wyrd requires a philosophical commitment to penetrating beyond the lazy glosses on reality and history that many are content with to simply get along in life, and a will to discover the living weave of potentiality throughout time that retains its wildness, and therefore its capacity to surprise, simultaneously, in not only the future and the present, but the past as well, for even our pasts contain more mystery than we fathom, and we must will to spy upon what is concealed in order to grasp a glimpse of what is going on. This spying upon the concealed is how our ancestors envisioned visionary voyages, using our surreal capacities to penetrate the veil that covers over and clouds much of reality.

There is an important question here of where you find yourself reflected, and in what mirrors do you choose to peer? The weird are those who choose the mirror of dreams, and like the wilderness of dreams, every wild phenomenon that retains its surreal quality. Thus, while many choose a Bible as a mirror, our ancestors listened to river eddies and the howling of the wind to find their own reflection. The poetry of existence more accurately reflects our wyrd, and, when successfully articulated by a skilled poet, may be found as well in that dreamlike prophecy which poets utter. To the extent that bibles capture this, they may serve as useful mirrors as well, but we should never sever our ties to forests, winds, herbs, and water, for their movements speak volumes to which a book can only allude. The more surreal and knotted the book, therefore, the more its allusions open out onto the surreal process of life, adn may be gathered as a rough guide. Let us not forget that the most important things still lie outside books : the biochemistry and phytospirituality of the herbs of the fields, the poetry of the landscape and the seasons, and other mysteries which often have hardly found their way into writing.

We are therefore not just our deeds, but the dreams inherent in those deeds, the dreams made possible by those deeds, as well as the dreams denied by those deeds. Deeds are an opportunity, although not a guarantee, to incarnate dreams, and thus we admire the bold, who attune their aspirations and efforts towards the marvelous and all it promises.

There is an important connection between weird and wyrd, because wyrd truly retains wildness, while those who choose to maintain themselves in predictable ruts attempt to domesticate wyrd, which cannot be domesticated, for change will come despite our insulations and avoidances. The weird retain the behavioral flexibility and mental unpredictability that matches wyrd's wildness. They allow wyrd to flow up and through them, for they trust its nonlinear flows, without needing in advance explanations or excuses : wyrd itself is their charter. They tend, therefore, to be excellent improvisers who are not afraid to trust their own genius, that uncanny follower whose swan-wings shield us and allow us flight into realms of marvel, who whispers those words of wyrd uttered at our conception and then again at our birth.

Your fylgia is your little connection to God, as it were, and union with her can therefore feel like attainment of Godhead, yet ever heathen earthiness tames this potential megalomania back to its humble and ample worth : union with the genius, full and worthy, but still the experience of a small and growing creature. The genius has access to the Gods, and to Wyrd herself, and yet the genius in all its wonder and wisdom does not know all. Existence itself is a process shrouded in surprise.

By trusting our genius, however, and listening to its guidance, however weird, we can come more into the flow of existence's unfolding. We must remember however much we know, ever are there surprises and treasures brokered and bartered by disir who make bargains behind the scenes as their charges and descendants prove worthy through their deeds (and worthy not just through righteousness, but also boldness in pursuing potentiality), and according to what the Gods have won and allotted to the realm of dises. Beyond even that ample kingdom lie treasures not allotted, and beyond that, treasures undreamed of and in the dark, some still in the abscondance of giants, ready to be rescued and retrieved by God or Hero.

Our personal genius, being our guide and broker, is privy to these behind the scene deals and bargains on our behalf, as we show promsie through our devotion. Some misfortune is merely the price paid in the bargain for some boon, or to avoid greater misfortune. Still, the genius weeps iwth us when we despair, although it retains a centered quality that connects it to wisdom deeper than outcomes and disappointments. Where all this brokerage takes place is in our dreams (and any conscious visionary voyages we choose to take). There our personal genius barters with spirits to find a mutual bargain in the ample distribution of luck's flows. Gathering up your wyrd connects you to your genius, and your genius connects you to flows of luck that try your potential and enrich your life.